We're off, into Arnhem land, it's a 6 hour tour which we thought was going to be lead by an aboriginal guide but instead we are met by a young Aussie girl, Kirra. She's got her MR licence to cart us tourists around in a big 4WD mini bus. There is only two other couples on the trip, a young couple Italian honeymooners and an elderly American couple (bird watchers). This is the other side of Cahill's crossing, where we spot our first real life crocs (ginga) in the wild. It's best spotting them at high tide when they're out to catch all the fish, we'll be back for that.
Our first stop an aboriginal burial site. No photos are allowed at this site unfortunately. However the surrounding grounds are buzzing with Correlas and there is cows and a couple of nesting whistling kites. We could see a lot of bones at this burial site and there is artwork on the rock walls here as well. The clan these bones belong to no longer exists, so another tribe has taken over the upkeep of the site. No one knows how many bodies buried there. This site is protected by trees, there is no burn offs around this site.
Back over in Kakadu they use silicone lines to protect the artwork, redirecting the rain waters away. A lot of elements affect the condition of the artwork, rain, wind, dust, fires. At the next stop we are able to take photos of the artwork. The hands are that of a decorated elder, the boat was just sailing by at the time..... All these sites tell a story, artworks are sometimes painted over top of other paintings, telling the different stories as time goes by.
We travel to a small community Oenpelli, to visit the Art Centre. We are able to take photos outside, except no photos of children and photos of elders by request. We have a little tour around the grounds by old mate Tony. Here, traditionally the men do all the painting and the women weave. It was a bit hard to understand old mate Tony, but we got the gist of what was going on. They still paint with the natural ochres and use reeds as their painting brushes. Up here they do line paintings, different to central Australia where they do dot paintings.
This ol mate giving us a demo and I must say he had a very steady hand, the lines were straight as. This painting to take approx 2 weeks to complete, I suspect that's because he only adds a few lines when the tourists come around, cause as we left he was out with his mates socialising. The paper they use is imported from France, expensive but lasts for up to 200 years. The men were painting on the left of the building, the ladies were set up to do their weaving on the right side of the building but they were having a slack attack when we were there.
We ventured inside, no photos allowed. We bought a half price pandanas woven basket for $27. We found the paintings on the expensive side, especially after the cost of the tour $225 pp. But that includes lunch by this billabong. Here we enjoyed buffalo rissoles and thai chicken rissoles, salad, fruit salad and iced tea all pretty yummy. The others didn't fancy the buffalo but we tucked in. This place is teaming with bird life, we startled a whistling kite, he took off with a snake but dropped it right near our picnic area. Luckily it was dead and half eaten.
We also see brolgas, jabirus and other birds here, on the other side of the billabong of course. We thoroughly enjoy the day out. Last stop was at Cahill's crossing where we see some foolish blokes fishing at high tide. But wait there's my Darl out there with them. Kirra asks me to call him back from the water's edge. One of the fisherman says lucky they are lazy, little does he know, it's like the calm before the storm. As we crossed back to Kakadu I counted 9 crocs swarming around waiting for a feed. We ended the day with a push bike ride down
to the crossing where we spotted a few lazy crocs sleeping off their lunch on the opposite side of the river. The one in the middle is huge when zoomed in. I do my best Steve Erwin "Crikey Mate" but miss the startled expression. Note the last pic on the sign if you can, crocs eating humans, guess it does happen.
Quarantine check at the WA border, we have arrived! And yes they do a thorough check of fridge, pantry box and any supermarket bags. We passed with flying colours and were on our way. Before we hit Kununurra we spot the sign to Ord River Dam so take the scenic route out there, the road meanders through the escarpments, beautiful. 
My Darl decides to do his own little celebratory dance in the Ord Dam picnic area, luckily there were no other tourists around at the time. Go Darl!! We almost scored a swag on the way here on the main road, come across it sitting high and dry in the middle of the road, Darl threw it into back of ute, but just as we were taking off a young bloke pulled up behind, he had come to retrieve his swag and was most grateful, nearly!
The dam was completed in 1972, it opened up 76,000 hectares of land irrigated agriculture.The rockfill dam is 68 metres high and 355 metres long and originally impounded 5.8 million megalitres of water. In 1996 the spillway was raised 6 metres, doubling it's capacity.
We head into Kununurra to the tourist info to get the go on the local hot spots. We decide on a few activities including drive out to Wyndham, WA's most northern town. We picked up a brochure at Katherine for Hidden Valley van park, looks good big shady sites. We got there and the shade was mango trees and the sites were small. We headed over to Lakeside Resort and van park, much much nicer. We saw a couple fresh water crocs in the arvo swimming on by. Site big, we put up the annex and settle in.
